Companion animals, particularly dogs and cats, are significant vectors of non-food borne gastrointestinal infection. Decreasing the risk of infection of these animals, and the ability to reduce infection when it does occur plays an important role in reducing zoonotic risk. Zoonotic risk is the risk of transfer of infection from one species to another. Clearly, this includes the risk of transfer of infection from companion animals to humans.
In dogs and cats, Campylobacter and E. coli are the predominant gastrointestinal pathogens, causing both clinical and non-clinical infections.
In dogs and cats, fecal shedding of Campylobacter occurs in animals which are infected, whether clinical symptoms are shown or not.
Campylobacter is a most common zoonoses, as well as being a common cause of gastroenteritis in humans. It is estimated that 5% of all human C. jejuni-induced enteritis result from exposure to infected dogs or cats.
In view of the zoonotic risk of Campylobacter infection from companion animals to humans, it is recommended that control measures that should be considered, which include restricting contact of children with puppies which may be infected, pets which may be infected be kept away from food preparation areas, affected animals should be kept apart from healthy ones and thorough disinfecting of bedding, food bowls etc. should be carried out.
As mentioned above, Campylobacter infection in cats and dogs may or may not result in clinical symptoms. Thus it is difficult to know whether any animal, at any time, is infected or not. A 3 to 7 day incubation period is found in dogs and cats, which may be followed by a diarrhea that ranges from mild to transient to mucus laden bloody diarrhea. However, since diarrhea is symptomatic of an enormous number of problems, including a range of infections, dietary problems (rapid change, over eating, scavenging, food tolerance, food hypersensitivity), neoplasia, inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, metabolic disease, systemic disease, and drug reactions, the noting of diarrhea in itself cannot be used to diagnose Campylobacter infection.